Laughs Quotes

When I was a kid, like four or five years old, I was obsessed with the 'Batman' TV show in the '60s. And I took it totally seriously. At that age, I took it completely seriously. I didn't get the fact that it was kind of played for laughs. I didn't understand why my mom was rolling her eyes or chuckling. ~ Lee Bermejo

I say, "I love you."

She says, "I love you too." And then she laughs. "It's kind of crazy. I mean you."

"I know. What the hell?"

She covers her mouth with one hand, but her eyes are shining. I'm thinking about a field of grass on a summer day. I'm thinking about the sun and being warmed from the inside and warmed from the outside.

I take her hand under the gray-blue sky and I'm home. ~ Jennifer Niven

You want to play on your Xbox?" I ask. He laughs loudly. "No, Anastasia, no Xbox, no Playstation. Come. ~ E.L. James

Ree is his. Is his, is devoted to him, is aggravatingly tender and possessively passionate and wrapped up in him in a thousand ways, loves him in a way that is very useful. It seems a law of nature, at this point. Even if the events of this startling evening have served to give him pause, a little. But Ree is still his. He's fairly sure. Such complex knots can't be untied so quickly, can they?

Still, it's not the only thing disturbing him, about the Dam's account of early events. She laughs when she sees his face, his sidewise look at her description, and there's definitely a mean note to it. "Oh, it was darling," she says, and he gets the feeling of a caged animal stuck behind bars, while a cruel child pokes at it. "You were enchanted by his wolf, would follow it anywhere, welcome or not, though mostly he tolerated it. But you couldn't manage his name – and a nickname hadn't stuck at that point – so instead you imitated the sound he made. Rather insultingly, too, if not intentionally – Ruff. Or Woof, or whatever it was that you intended to say, except that it actually came out as Wuff. Or Wuffy, depending, and at varying pitches and volume as you ran after him, falling down and rolling about half the time."

Penn is transfixed. It's outrageous, it's an outrage. It can't possibly be true. It was nothing like that. ~ Alex Ankarr

And if I die sometime – I'm going to die very soon – I know I'll die as I am,
without accepting this world, perceiving it close up and far away, inside and out,
perceiving but not accepting it. I'll die and He will ask me: "Was it good there for
you? Was it bad there for you?" I will be silent, with lowered eyes. I'll be silent
that muteness familiar to everyone who knows the outcome of days of hard
boozing. For isn't the life of man a momentary boozing of the soul? And an eclipse
of the soul as well? We are all as if drunk, only everybody in his own way: one
person has drunk more, the next less. And it works differently on each: the one
laughs in the face of this world, while the next cries on its bosom. One has already
thrown up and feels better, while the next is only starting of feel like throwing up.
But me, what am I? I've partaken of much, but nothing works on me. I haven't
really laughed properly, even once, and I've never thrown up, even once. I, who
have partaken of so much in this world that I've lost count and the sequence of it
all, I am soberer than anyone else in this world; ~ Venedikt Erofeev

Each person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears a close space and another man fears drowning; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. Thus fear is only a preference, to be counted the same as the preference for one woman or another, or mutton for pig, or cabbage for onion. ~ Michael Crichton

Now let's repeat the non-conformists' oath: I promise to be different! (audience repeats) I promise to be unique! (audience repeats) I promise not to repeat things other people say! (audience repeats, laughs) Good! ~ Steve Martin

I like stories of adventure. Especially if there's some kind of disaster involved."
The eyebrow remains arched.
I laugh. "I read the ones with happy endings, too."
Josh gestures towards my shelves. "You read a lot."
"Safer than going on a real adventure."
Now he's the one who laughs. "Maybe. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Sometimes the nastiest shit happens behind the prettiest doors, while everyone laughs and smiles and pretends everything's okay. Here's the thing about my world. We're fucked up. We own it. We take care of business and move on. ~ Joanna Wylde

A wise person laughs and smiles through the eyes ... The smile and laughter through the eyes influence people tremendously. No energy leaks if you smile through the eyes. ~ Sivananda

As a host, Lincoln was "never at a loss as to the subjects that please the different classes of visitors and there is a certain quaintness and originality about all he has to say, so that one cannot help feeling interested. His 'talk' is not brilliant," Villard observed. "His phrases are not ceremoniously set, but pervaded with a humorousness and, at times, with a grotesque joviality, that will always please. I think it would be hard to find one who tells better jokes, enjoys them better and laughs oftener than Abraham Lincoln. ~ Harold Holzer

didn't talk soothingly to the rat, or stroke her, but firmly grabbed her behind the neck, mimicking a playful nip, and then ran his fingers up and down her rib cage, tickling her. She squirmed briefly, but stopped when he turned her over and tickled her belly. (Like humans, rats have "tickle-skin.") That was when she began to laugh, calls that we heard through the bat detector as quick, high-pitched chirps, and saw on the computer monitor in a sonogram rendition as a vertical series of wavy lines. Compared to a sonogram of various kinds of human laughs, a rat's chirps may be closest to a giggle. "There, she's laughing already," Panksepp said, tickling her some more. "Chup, chup, chup," I wrote in my notebook, trying to approximate the bat-detector's translation of her rat laughter. When Panksepp stopped tickling, she jumped up and bunny-hopped around the bin, while making more of her laughing play-chirps. ~ Virginia Morell

Master Li, how are we going to murder a man who laughs at axes?" I asked.
We are going to experiment, dear boy. Our first order of business will be to find a deranged alchemist, which should not be very difficult. China," said Master Li, "is overstocked with deranged alchemists. ~ Barry Hughart

When I began doing theatre in high school I saw that I could get laughs from people but I didn't really connect that to going on and becoming a comedian. I was interested in acting and while I was at Boston College I was part of an improv group, Mother's Fleabag, which had a long history and has been known as one of the best college improvisation groups in the U.S. ~ Amy Poehler

There is a river running through this city and every time my best friend laughs I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout Grow old with me and never kiss me on the mouth! I want to spend the next eighty years together, eating Doritos and riding bikes. ~ Clementine Von Radics

Performing comedy, you develop a rhythm of ideas and laughs. I live for it. ~ Louis C.K.

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day. ~ A.E. Housman

Is there any other way to Erudite headquarters?" I say. "Not that I now of," says Cara. "Unless you want to jump from one roof to another." She laughs a little as she says it, like it's a joke. I raise my eyebrows at her. "Wait," she says. "You aren't considering
? ~ Veronica Roth

Nature laughs at the difficulties of integration. ~ Pierre-Simon Laplace

I appreciate your help, but that still does not satisfy my confusion. Who are you?" she asks as she sits forward.
"I could be asking you the same thing, Mrs. Peeper," he says as he laughs. ~ Shanora Williams

For better or worse, there are few things so disarming as one who laughs well at her own expense. ~ Amor Towles

Everything about her is beautiful to me. Even when she's scowling, when she's angry and full of hate. She's beautiful when she cries, when she's in the throes of grief. She's beautiful when she smiles, when she laughs at me. But she's the most beautiful when she's doing nothing. When she thinks nobody's looking, when she thinks she's alone. ~ J.M. Darhower

Or ... maybe I'm not going crazy. "Maybe I'm some sort of android-cyborg-clone-thing, and I'm just breaking down.
I'm not sure which way is worse.
Dad laughs. "You're not in your right mind, dear," he says. "No, no, no, you're not."
And then
- Silence.
Dad fades away. The reverie chair disappears.
There's just blackness. I remember then that I am in the reverie of something dead. Whatever that thing was, it was dead.
And, just as I'm starting to wonder if, perhaps, I have died, too, I see a light, far away in the corner of the dreamscape. The light isn't soft; it's not glowing. It crackles like silent lightning, burning with electricity, sparks flying out and fizzling in the dark.
I don't know why - it makes no sense, the way dreams often don't - but I want to touch the light.
So I do. ~ Beth Revis

If the other person laughs at you, you can pity him; but if you laugh at him you may never forgive yourself.
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
In truth the other person is your most sensitive self given another body. ~ Kahlil Gibran

The phone. "God, this sucks, man. The only good thing about this entire school since you moved is fifth period." "What's fifth period?" Holder asks. "Nothing. They forgot to assign me a class, so I hide out in this maintenance closet every day for an hour." Holder laughs. I realize as I'm listening to it that it's the first time I've heard him laugh since Les died two months ago. ~ Colleen Hoover

I use various soaps and hand sanitizers in the shower. I shower maybe fifteen times a day, but Thom Yorke is never really clean *laughs*. ~ Thom Yorke

I nearly swallow my tongue when Cash pops up from behind the bar. "You must be Olivia."
"Holy mother of hell!" I say, grabbing my chest to still my racing heart.
He laughs. "With a mouth like that, you'll fit right in here."
If I weren't so surprised, I'd probably take exception to that comment. Instead, I laugh.
"You bring out the worst in me. What can I say? ~ M. Leighton

John laughed. "You know, I've heard all the sayings about the wrath of women, but whew, Scar, you have a temper."
The others chuckled.
"Keep it in mind, John Little," I warned him. I didn't feel much like chuckling.
He laughed. "I'll be sure to inform Jenny Percy," he said.
I rolled my eyes, but this time I heard a small laugh come from Rob's distant corner. "So she really kissed
Scar?"
"Should have seen it, Rob! Scar's right in the middle of giving her a talking-to, and Jenny lays one on her," Much
crowed.
"So that's how we shut her up," John said.
I knew he were fair close to me so I tried to kick him. It took a few attempts, but one finally hit something and I heard him whine, "Ow, Scar!"
"And none of you jumped in to defend - her - her honor?" Rob asked, but it got broken up with laughs.
"The lot of you are stupid blighters," I snapped. "It ain't for laughing."
This made them crack apart with howls. ~ A.C. Gaughen

One date and I'm already craving everything, Bexley. Especially from these gorgeous lips. Put them on me," he grunts.
"Was it… was it the way I ate my gummy bears?"
He laughs, the noise went from his mouth into mine and I sigh dreamily, leaning into him. He's too potent for me to resist. How can I leave it at one date after he's said all that sweet stuff? I'm a woman, not a robot. Anyone's resolve would melt like water on sugar if a sexy as sin guy talks about being obsessed with kissing them.
"You were pretty brutal nibbling their ears off first. ~ V. Theia

The only thing that consoles me is to be surrounded by people as depressed as I am. The readers down here, they're seriously depressed and that cheers me up. You yourself for instance, if I can put this politely, you don't exactly look like a bundle of laughs. No, don't pretend, I can see right through you. ~ Sophie Divry

He makes a face and tosses the flower at me. It lands on my cheek, and I pick it up and twirl it between my fingers. I could lie out here all day, not moving an inch, feeling the sun above and the grass below. With a contented sigh, I stretch my arms wide, raking the grass with my fingers - and find myself brushing Aladdin's hand with my own. I pull it away quickly, my cheeks warming. He laughs a little.
"Sometimes," he says, "I forget you're supposed to be four thousand years old. You act as shy as a girl of sixteen."
"I do not!" I sit up and glare at him.
He grins and shrugs, sliding his hands under his head. There are bits of grass stuck in his hair, and after a moment's hesitation, I reach over and flick them away.
Aladdin watches me silently, his throat bobbing as he swallows. I drop my gaze. ~ Jessica Khoury

But the trouble with asking your subconscious what it wants is, it just laughs at you and says, 'Work it out for yourself, moron. ~ Sophie Kinsella

Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

He laughs. "I'm sitting at my desk, looking through my window, and talking to you."
"Talking to your boyfriend."
"Yeah," he says. I can hear him smiling. "Him". ~ Becky Albertalli

He feels the need to hear a human voice - a fully human voice like his own. Sometimes he laughs like a hyena or roars like a lion - his idea of a hyena his idea of a lion. ~ Margaret Atwood

has provided me with a platform to share my passion with millions in a way I neither expected nor could have imagined in my career. I hope that it's given the millions of people that I've touched the optimism and the desire to achieve their goals through hard work, perseverance, and positive attitude. Although I'm recognized with this tremendous honor of being in the Basketball Hall of Fame, I don't look at this moment as a defining end to my relationship with the game of basketball. It's simply a continuation of something that I started a long time ago. One day you might look up and see me playing the game at 50. (laughs) Oh, don't laugh. Never say never. Because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion. Thank you very much. Looking forward to it. ~ Nathan Aaseng

I can't wait for him to visit me again. He's just so handsome, don't you think?" she asked.
I paused. "Yeah, he's cute."
"Come on, America! You have to have noticed those eyes and his voice..."
"Except when he laughs!" Just remembering Maxon's laugh had me grinning. It was cute but awkward. He pushed his breaths out, and then made a jagged noise when he inhaled, almost like another laugh in itself.
"Yes, okay, he does have a funny laugh, but it's cute."
"Sure, if you like the lovable sound of an asthma attack in your ear every time you tell a joke."
Marlee lost it and doubled over in laughter.
"All right, all right," she said, coming up for air. "You have to think there's something attractive about him."
I opened my mouth and shut it two or three times. I was tempted to take another jab at Maxon, but I didn't want Marlee to see him in a negative light. So I thought about it.
What was attractive about Maxon?
"Well, when he lets his guard down, he's okay. Like when he just talks without checking his words or you catch him just looking at something like...like he's really looking for the beauty in it."
Marlee smiled, and I knew she'd seen that in him, too.
"And I like that he seems genuinely involved when he's there, you know? Like even though he's got a country to run and a thousand things to do, it's like he forgets it all when he's with you. He just dedicates himself to what's right in front of him. I like that.
Kiera Cass

He laughs with relief. "Yes." The word yes is so much more beautiful coming from his mouth, laced with that voice. He could probably make any word beautiful. I try to think of a word I hate. I kind of hate the word ox. It's an ugly word. Too short and clipped. I wonder if his voice could make me love that word. "Say the word ox." His eyebrow rises, like he's wondering if he heard me right. He thinks I'm weird. I don't care. "Just say it," I tell him. "Ox," he says, with slight hesitation. I smile. I love the word ox. It's my new favorite word. ~ Colleen Hoover

Everybody knows from his own experience that after laughter, good laughter, a belly laugh, you almost feel that you have taken an ice-cold shower; a peace, a silence, a freshness ... The same is true about crying, but very few people know the secret of crying because it is more repressed than laughter. ~ Rajneesh

A lot of comedies are based on the reaction shot. You have one person doing something stupid and one person is generally the straight man, and the laughs generally come on the reaction of the straight man to the funny thing the other person has done. ~ Richard Ayoade

I keep thinking about when we were young and we played 'Candor,'" he says. "How I used to sit you down in a chair in the living room and as you questions? Remember?"
"Yes," I say. I lean my hips into the lab table. "You used to find the pulse in my wrist and tell me that if I lied, you would be able to tell, because the Candor can always tell when other people are lying. It wasn't very nice."
Caleb laughs. "That one time, you confessed to stealing a book from the school library just as Mom came home--"
"And I had to go to the librarian and apologize!" I laugh too. "That librarian was awful. She always called everyone 'young lady' or 'young man.'"
"Oh, she loved me, though. Did you know that when I was a library volunteer and was supposed to be shelving books during my lunch hour, I was really just standing in the aisles and reading? She caught me a few times and never said anything about it."
"Really?" I feel a twinge in my chest. "I didn't know that."
"There was a lot we didn't know about each other, I guess." He taps his fingers on the table. "I wish we had been able to be more honest with each other."
"Me too."
"And it's too late now, isn't it." He looks up.
"Not for everything." I pull out a chair from the lab table and sit in it. "Let's play Candor. I'll answer a question and then you have to answer a question. Honestly, obviously."
He looks a little exasperated, but he plays along. "Okay. What did you really do to break ~ Veronica Roth

I'm often asked, 'What is your favorite moment during the 30 years you hosted The Tonight Show?' I really don't have just one. The times I enjoyed the most were the spontaneous, unplanned segments that just happened, like Ed Ames' infamous 'Tomahawk Toss' that produced one of the longest laughs in television history. When these lucky moments happen, you just go with them and enjoy the experience and high of the moment. ~ Johnny Carson

The guys were giving me shit," I blurt out, my common sense weakened by his nearness. "About you. They implied that you were a cold fish where sex was involved. That you don't…er…do that anymore."
God, I can't look at him. I brace for his ire, but he laughs. Not long or very loud, but his chest shakes, and he wipes a hand over his face as he tries to get control of it.
"And you what?" he asks, his eyes gleaming with mirth. "Thought I was a virgin?"
"No." I kick his foot lightly. "No. I just…Gah! You said fuck , and it got me thinking about it."
"Fucking?" he asks, grinning wide enough to flash his white teeth.
I look away so I can't be charmed any further. "I hate you."
"No, you don't," he teases in a tone so unlike him – so like me - that I meet his gaze.
"No, I don't," I agree quietly. ~ Kristen Callihan

Where on earth did you come from,
baby?"
Frey's brows drew together and he asked softly back, "Pardon?"
My thumb stroked his jaw before I whispered, "My handsome husband is gentle, thoughtful and kind. He laughs and smiles easily and he makes me feel safe. I was with your folks for about five minutes and they were so far from any of that, it is not funny. So," I squeezed his neck, "where did you come from? ~ Kristen Ashley

And yet, in Raissa, at every moment there is a child in a window who laughs seeing a dog that has jumped on a shed to bite into a piece of polenta dropped by a stonemason who has shouted from the top of the scaffolding, "Darling, let me dip into it," to a young servant-maid who holds up a dish of ragout under the pergola, happy to serve it to the umbrella-maker who is celebrating a successful transaction, a white lace parasol bought to display at the races by a great lady in love with an officer who has smiled at her taking the last jump, happy man, and still happier his horse, flying over the obstacles, seeing a francolin flying in the sky, happy bird freed from its cage by a painter happy at having painted it feather by feather, speckled with red and yellow in the illumination of that page in the volume where the philosopher says: "Also in Raissa, city of sadness, there runs an invisible thread that binds one living being to another for a moment, then unravels, then is stretched again between moving points as it draws new and rapid patterns so that at every second the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence. ~ Italo Calvino

Around six-thirty, Rory was across the street, leaning against a telegraph pole, smiling just for laughs; the world was filthy, and so was he. After a short search, he pulled a long strand of girls' hair from his mouth. Whoever she was, she was out there somewhere, she lay open-legged in Rory's head. A girl we'll never know, or see. ~ Markus Zusak

Fool, not to know that love endures no tie,
And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury. ~ John Dryden

I only had you for the blink of an eye," he says.
She laughs. "You had me an entire lifetime. All of mine."
"That wasn't enough ~ Fredrik Backman

Chennai is one of the scariest crowds to face. Everyone looks so conservative, but once you crack the first joke, they are so appreciatively loud that they will hit you with a laugh that will scare you stiff and yet give you energy. Chennaiites give me the loudest laughs; it's the coolest crowd to perform for. ~ Vir Das

He pushes in then, slowly, deeply, stroking a chord inside of me. My breath hitches. Oh God.
"I love that sound," he whispers, his voice gritty. "It's the best music in the world."
I wrap my arms around him. "Maybe that should be your ringtone, then."
He laughs, his face nuzzled into my neck. "That wouldn't work."
"Why?"
"Because others would hear it. That sound belongs only to my ears. ~ J.M. Darhower

Let the other guys do the crybaby stuff. Go for the laughs. ~ Rip Torn

You hurt me, I want to say. You're my best friend. The one who's supposed to tell me I'd be the best boyfriend in the world and that any girl would be lucky to have me, not the one who laughs outright at the thought that I might need someone to love. ~ Lauren Layne

How are you feeling Sweet Peach?" he enquires as he walks across to the chest of drawers, selects a pair of socks and pulls them on.
Sweet Peach? What the hell?
He's definitely gay ...
I shrug. "Er ... okay, I guess. I really don't remember much though. How did I get here ... and why am I wearing your t-shirt?" I ask hesitantly, afraid of the answer.
Hagen laughs nervously. "I brought you home when you couldn't tell me where you lived. And don't worry, you got changed all by yourself ... in the kitchen ... for like an hour. ~ Joanne McClean

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner. ~ Douglas Adams

Thrills, chills, spine-tingling mystery, and lots of smiles. It's not easy to combine heart-pounding danger with gut-busting laughs and make it work, but Peterson pulls it off. For readers who want nonstop action infused with powerful, life-changing themes, North! Or Be Eaten is a must-read. ~ Wayne Thomas Batson

A man, see… The harder the situation, the more a man laughs! ~ Oga Tatsumi

This isn't a bargain, it's a deal."
"I'm not in the business of striking deals with girls in cages."
I twist my lips into a cruel smile. "Then by all means, let me out."
Elian laughs, pulls a pistol out, and shakes his head once again.
"You know," he says, approaching the cell, "I think I might like you. Thing is" – he taps his gun against my prison – "there's a difference between liking someone and trusting them."
"I wouldn't know. I've never done either. ~ Alexandra Christo

Oh that's lovely," said Bunny. "Olive, you've got a date."
"Why would you say something so foolish?" Olive asked, really annoyed. "We're two lonely people having supper."
"Exactly," said Bunny. "That's a date. ~ Elizabeth Strout

Trick." I say a little louder.
"Shhh, sleep baby." He mumbles. I laugh and smack his arm.
"Wake up. I can feel your morning wood." This gets his attention and he sits up, taking me with him. The arms wrapped around my middle graze my breasts as he shifts up and a tingle shoots straight between my legs.
"God, Caroline, I'm so ... " He stops, probably realizing that he doesn't have morning wood, "I don't have ... " He's actually pretty cute all sleepy. He laughs.
"I know but I couldn't figure out how else to get your attention." I shrug. ~ K. Larsen

Beyond all of that, I could see the wall I had seen from inside the train, the wall that runs along the train line. I assumed that there, behind it, was the west, and I was right. I could have been wrong, but I was right.' If she had any future it was over there, and she needed to get to it.
I sit in the chair exploring the meaning of dumbstruck, rolling the word around in my mind. I laugh with Miriam as she laughs at herself, and at the boldness of being sixteen. At sixteen you are invulnerable. I laugh with her about rummaging around for a ladder in other people's sheds, and I laugh harder when she finds one. We laugh at the improbability of it, of someone barely more than a child poking around in Beatrix Potter's garden by the Wall, watching out for Mr McGregor and his blunderbuss, and looking for a step-ladder to scale one of the most fortified barriers on earth. We both like the girl she was, and I like the woman she has become.
She says suddenly, 'I still have the scars on my hands from climbing the barbed wire, but you can't see them so well now.' She holds out her hands. The soft parts of her palms are crazed with definite white scares, each about a centimeter long.
The first fence was wire mesh with a roll of barbed wire along the top. ~ Anna Funder

There are a lot of comedic actors who are just out to be the funny one and get all the laughs and they'll sacrifice your joke, the scene, the story just to be the star. All they want is attention and to be number one. You can spot those guys from a mile away and they're the worst. ~ Jake M. Johnson

A jovial man can be happy with anyone, but when a sad one laughs, he treasures that one who brings him the sunshine. (Cat) ~ Kinley MacGregor

I slip her shirt over her head and she tries to cover herself, but I move her arms out of the way and kiss up her neck while I talk about all the things that are no longer just mine.
'Will, stop.' She laughs and attempts to pull my hands away from her bra. 'You can't take off my bra, we're in our driveway. What if they come outside?'
'It's dark,' I whisper. 'And it's not your bra. It's our bra and I want it off.' I slip it off her, pulling her against me as I rub my hands down the length of her back, then around to the button on the front of her jeans. 'And I want to take off our pants. ~ Colleen Hoover

Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking
Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love
Cause love's such an old fashioned word
and love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure ~ Queen Elizabeth II

Everyone, everywhere, and all the time, used to laugh at me when I was growing up. So, when I was around 18, I thought, 'I'll become a comedian, and then if everyone laughs at me, I'll be famous.' So I went on stage one night and, for the first time in my life, everyone stopped laughing at me. ~ Emo Philips

He laughs like, what can you do? Laughs and spreads his palms as if revealing himself, Cortez the thief, as he is and always was, the person I always knew was there but never wanted to see. I am surprised, but why am I surprised? I decided at some point that he had made my road his road, given over to me the last two months of preimpact existence, because I was on my cockamamie hero's quest and required an able and agile sidekick - I reached that conclusion without thinking about it much and put the question aside. But everybody does everything for a reason. That's lesson number one of police work; it's lesson number one of life. ~ Ben H. Winters

Four shrugs. "So I suggest that you take the next week to consider your fears and develop strategies to face them." "That doesn't sound fair," says Peter. "What if one person only has seven fears and someone else has twenty? That's not their fault." Four stares at him for a few seconds and then laughs. "Do you really want to talk to me about what's fair?" The crowd of initiates parts to make way for him as he walks toward Peter, folds his arms, and says, in a deadly voice, "I understand why you're worried, Peter. The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward." Peter stares back, expressionless. "So now we all know," says Four, quietly, "that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation." His mouth curls in a smile. ~ Veronica Roth

And we have the night ahead of us
to stroll in lilac-scented gardens. Everything there
is here. It is all ours. You are mine, I am yours
and the shadow, your shadow, laughs like an orange. The dream
did its job and, like a postman, hurried on
to someone else. So we have to be
worthy, this evening, of ourselves, and of a river
that runs along beside us, and that we flow into as it flows into us. ~ Mahmoud Darwish

In the aftermath of loss, we do what we've always done, although we are changed, maybe more afraid. We do what we can, as well as we can. My pastor, Veronica, one Sunday told the story of a sparrow lying in the street with its legs straight up in the air, sweating a little under its feathery arms. A warhorse walks up to the bird and asks, "What on earth are you doing?" The sparrow replies, "I heard the sky was falling, and I wanted to help." The horse laughs a big, loud, sneering horse laugh, and says, "Do you really think you're going to hold back the sky, with those scrawny little legs?" And the sparrow says, "One does what one can." So what can I do? Not much. Mother Teresa said that none of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. This reminder has saved me many times. ~ Anne Lamott

I know the rules. I've been living here longer than you have."
He cracks a smile then. He nudges me back. "Hardly."
"Born and raised. You're a transplant." I nudge him again, a little harder, and he laughs and tries to catch hold of my arm. I squirm away, giggling, and he stretches out to tickle my stomach. "Country bumpkin!" I squeal, as he grabs out and wrestles me back onto the blanket, laughing.
"City slicker," he says, rolling over on top of me, and then kisses me. Everything dissolves: heat, explosions of color, floating. ~ Lauren Oliver

I told him that bed-and-breakfasts have ginormous whirlpool tubs, and that I'd be willing to do unspeakably sinful things to him
in it."
A strangled sound came from one of the two nerdy guys behind us in line, both wearing tortured expressions and staring at Erin. We stifled
laughs.
Maggie sighed. "Poor Chaz. He never had a chance… he's gonna be standing in front of a bunch of people saying 'I do' someday without
knowing how it happened."
"Ugh! I don't think so. When it's time to settle down, I'm getting somebody like…" Erin looked over her shoulder at the eavesdroppers behind
us, "like one of them."
The boys looked at each other and stood up a little straighter. With a smirk in Erin's direction, one of them fist-bumped the other. ~ Tammara Webber

I wonder if Perry snores. I'm not going to ask; first dates can be so awkward.
Fuck it.
"Hey, do you snore? I hate to ask, because I know how awkward it is to bring up on the first date."
Perry spit-laughs a gob of drool.
"You're unbelievable."
"So, yes?"
"No, I do not snore."
"You look like a snorer. ~ Edmond Manning

The mirror is my best friend because when I cry it never laughs. ~ Charlie Chaplin

I myself beheld the King
Charge at the head of all his Table Round,
And all his legions crying Christ and him,
And break them; and I saw him, after, stand
High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume
Red as the rising sun with heathen blood,
And seeing me, with a great voice he cried,
"They are broken, they are broken!" for the King,
However mild he seems at home, nor cares
For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts -
For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs
Saying, his knights are better men than he -
Yet in this heathen war the fire of God
Fills him: I never saw his like: there lives
No greater leader. ~ Alfred Tennyson

It's like our go-to notion of innocent and secure mythology of American life. I was always amazed when people would come up to me and say that 'Far from Heaven' was exactly what it was like back then. [laughs] I was so disinterested in what it was 'really like' in the 1950s when I was putting the film together, I was only interested in what it was like in movies. ~ Todd Haynes

Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff: Penny, why don't you write a play about Ism-Mania?
Penny Sycamore: Ism-Mania?
Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff: Yeah, sure, you know, Communism, Faschism, Voodoo-ism, everybody's got an -ism these days.
Penny Sycamore: Oh
[laughs]
Penny Sycamore: I thought it was some kind of itch or something.
Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff: Well, it's just as catching. When things go a little bad nowadays, you go out, get yourself an -ism and you're in business. ~ George S. Kaufman

Vague. Since when are you vague with me?
I exhale and recap the whole situation. Chase scoffs and laughs appropriately. By the time I'm finished, I've successfully converted him to team Seth. ~ Skyla Madi

Where do the really best laughs come from? Terrific connections made intellectually, or terrific revelations made emotionally. ~ Del Close

Nobody loves me, nobody cares,
Nobody picks me peaches and pears.
Nobody offers me candy and Cokes,
Nobody listens and laughs at me jokes.
Nobody helps when I get into a fight,
Nobody does all my homework at night.
Nobody misses me,
Nobody cries,
Nobody thinks I'm a wonderful guy.
So, if you ask me who's my best friend, in a whiz,
I'll stand up and tell you NOBODY is!
But yesterday night I got quite a scare
I woke up and Nobody just WASN'T there!
I called out and reached for Nobody's hand,
In the darkness where Nobody usually stands,
Then I poked through the house, in each cranny and nook,
But I found SOMEBODY each place that I looked.
I seached till I'm tired, and now with the dawn,
There's no doubt about it-
NOBODY'S GONE!! ~ Shel Silverstein

So . . . how are we getting out of here? Do I still have to?"
"Yes. That thing over there"-he points as he unhooks my coat from the hanger-"is an elevator. You've been in it before. With me, in fact. I'll step you through the process."
"What if someone sees us?"
"You say that now? Lucinda, you're priceless."
I slap my keyboard to lock my computer, snatch my handbag and clatter after him. I try to tug my coat from his arm but he shakes his head and tuts. The elevator doors open and he tugs me in, his hand at my waist.
I turn to see Helene, leaning on her doorframe, her posture one of casual amusement. She then throws her head back and laughs in delight, clapping her hands together. He waves to Helene as the doors close. ~ Sally Thorne

Sylph and Jodi return to my side, each carrying a cloth sack full of chickweed. I wrap my arm around Sylph's waist and give her a quick squeeze. "Lesson's over for today. I have something to discuss with Logan."
"Sounds serious." Jodi wiggles her brows at me.
"I think that's just Rachel for 'I need to go kiss my boy.'" Sylph laughs when I glare at her. ~ C.J. Redwine

It's a funny thing, really, me publishing a book.... I've had so many people tell me it was stupid or impossible or that I wouldn't never rise to such an occasion, but then -laughs- here I am: A Published Author. ~ Molly Lynn Robinson

He laughs more darkly.
You are so fucking mine you don't even know how mine you are. ~ Katy Evans

Quick, somebody call the caretaker!' Gemma's stage voice rang out loud and clear. 'There's some trash here that needs to be taken out.' She earned a chorus of laughs as she walked towards us, then came to a standstill right beside me. 'Christ, it reeks, too,' she said, pinching her nose. 'What did you do, Malice? Douse yourself in the whole bottle? Oh, never mind. I don't expect you to have heard of the adage "less is more". ~ Aurelia B. Rowl

Would you let me drive this?" I ask, surprised that I say the words out loud.
"Of course," Christian replies, smiling. "What's mine is yours. If you dent it, though, I will take you into the Red Room of Pain." He glances swiftly at me with a malicious grin.
"You're kidding. You'd punish me for denting your car? You love your car more than you love me?" I tease.
"It's close," he says and reaches across to squeeze my knee, "But she doesn't keep me warm at night."
"I'm sure it could be arranged. You could sleep in her," I snap.
Christian laughs. "We haven't been home one day and you're kicking me out already?" He seems delighted. ~ E.L. James

You think it's okay to deliver dead flowers?" She turns and laughs. "I've had stranger requests." I flinch. Like what? I find the card and remove it from the tiny envelope. HE SAYS HE NEEDS YOU. HE DOESN'T. YOU THINK YOU KNOW HIM. YOU DON'T. I DO. LEAVE HIM. ~ Jodi Ellen Malpas

When she laughs the world stops for a while... ~ Avijeet Das

By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow," Ivan went on, seeming not to hear his brother's words, "told me about the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of a general rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage women and children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences, leave them so till morning, and in the morning they hang them- all sorts of things you can't imagine. People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.
These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children, -too; cutting the unborn child from the mothers womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before their mothers' eyes. Doing it before the mothers' eyes was what gave zest to the amusement. Here is another scene that I thought very interesting. Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. They've planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby's face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the baby's face and blows out its brains. A ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He who laughs last has not yet heard the bad news. ~ Bertolt Brecht

In terms of the stars, the only ones I cast were Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins. I was in Los Angeles working and a lot of this took place on the telephone. I'd met Maggie [Smith] once and I'd come back-stage, which I'm usually loathe to do because as an actor you don't want people coming back because you want to get home [laughs]. ~ Dustin Hoffman

What did Finnick Odair want?" he asks.
I turn and put my lips close to Peeta's and drop my eyelids in imitation of Finnick. "He offered me sugar and wanted to know all my secrets," I say in my best seductive voice.
Peeta laughs. "Ugh. Not really."
"Really," I say. "I'll tell you more when my skin stops crawling. ~ Suzanne Collins

I'm getting older, so how people face grave circumstances is of interest to me. And you meet a lot of people who are very courageous, and it doesn't reek of something funny to write about, but I always think that the higher the stakes, the bigger the laughs can be, and the more emotional the scenes can be. ~ Judd Apatow

Never trust a man who laughs after each occasion he has spoken. He is sure to have some scheme afoot. ~ Shane K.P. O'Neill

I know, right? I really think I want to be a single for a while."
I turn to Jane and say, "I bet you five bucks he'll be in love within four hours."
She laughs. "Make it three and you're on."
"Deal."
We shake. ~ John Green

New York City is the most fatally fascinating thing in America. She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country, showing her alluring white face, and hiding her crooked hands and feet under the folds of her wide garments,
constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come from across the seas to go no farther. And all these become the victims of her caprice. Some she at once crushes beneath her cruel feet; others she condemns to a fate like that of galley slaves; a few she favors and fondles, riding them high on the bubbles of fortune; then with a sudden breath she blows the bubbles out and laughs mockingly as she watches them fall. ~ James Weldon Johnson

There's absolutely nothing irrational about me; insane, yes, irrational, no. But my dumbest fear would be spinning in the magic tea cups. Who the hell wants to pay to spin around like a bent yoyo for laughs? ~ Akshay Kumar

If I get a hard audience they are not going to get away until they laugh. Those seven laughs a minute - I've got to have them. ~ Ken Dodd

There's not really much destruction in New York besides the weather and it's a natural force so it's not like any destruction. But LA gets leveled (laughs). That's my comment to Hollywood. ~ Roland Emmerich

Speaking of body decorations, I luuhhhvv your belly piercing!" Heeb said, looking at the gold ring in the center of her slim, tan waist. Despite the artic cold, Angelina had opted for a skin tight, black tube top that ended just above her belly, on the assumption that a warm cab, a winter coat, and a short wait to get into the club was an adequate frosty weather strategy. Heeb was still reverently staring at her belly when Angelina finally caught her breath from laughing.

"Do you really like it? You're just saying that so that you can check out my belly!"

"And what's so bad about that? I mean, didn't you get that belly piercing so that people would check out your belly?"

"No. I just thought it would look cool…Do you have any piercings?"

"Actually, I do," Heeb replied.

"Where?"

"My appendix."

"Huh?"

"I wanted to be the first guy with a pierced organ. And the appendix is a totally useless organ anyway, so I figured why the hell not?"

"That's pretty original," she replied, amused.

"Oh yeah. I've outdone every piercing fanatic out there. The only problem is when I have to go through metal detectors at the airport."

Angelina burst into laughs again, and then managed to say, "Don't you have to take it out occasionally for a cleaning?"

"Nah. I figure I'll just get it removed when my appendix bursts. It'll be a two for one operation, if you know what I m ~ Zack Love

Calvin clears his throat. "Do you have anything to drink?"

Booze. Right. This is the perfect situation for some booze. I jump up, and he laughs, awkwardly. "I should have thought to get champagne or something."

"You bought the dinner," I remind him. "Obviously the champagne was on my list and I dropped the ball."

Pulling a bottle of vodka from the freezer, I set it on the counter and then realize I have nothing to mix it with. And I finished the last beer the other night.

"I have vodka."

He smiles valiantly. "Straight-up vodka it is."

"It's Stoli."

"Straight-up mediocre vodka it is," he amends with a cheeky wink.

His phone buzzes, and it sets off a weird, giddy reaction in my chest. We both have full lives beyond this apartment, which remain complete mysteries to each other. One difference between us is that Calvin likely doesn't care about my life outside of this. Yet I care intensely about his. Having him here feels like finding the key to unlock a mysterious chest that's been sitting in the corner of my bedroom for a year.

Buzz. Buzz.

Looking up, I meet his eyes. They're wide, almost as if he's not sure whether to answer.

"You can get it," I assure him. "It's okay."

His face darkens with a flush. "I . . . don't think I should."

"It's your phone! Of course it's okay to answer it."

"It's not . . ."

Buzz. Buzz.
Christina Lauren